WELCOME!
To my Home Theater and Hi-Fi home page
My HT setup: Sharp Full HD LC-52G7M, Onkyo TX-SR-875 AV amp, Sony PS3 player, Wharfedale: Crystal CR-40 (front), WH2 center, WH208 subwoofer and rear CR-8, Sony GX-350 DVD recorder and Draco HDTV3800 SAT tuner
Overview of the HT setup in 5.1 channel. On the background is my dog, Milo
Introduction
Home theater system just got a lot bigger... With the advent of high definition video and audio, it is now possible to view high quality image and sound right at your living room! The little Sony PS3 player has changed that; a great Bluray, SACD/CD and DVD player. To tap the extensive features of PS3, I got the Onkyo TX-SR-875 A/V receiver and Full HD Sharp 52'' LCD.
Sharp LC-52G7M Full HDTV
This is 7th generation LCD panel features multi-pixel (individual RGB pixels, 1920x1080x3=6.22 million pixels), a WG-CCFL to produce wider crimson red and a fast 4ms response time. This is last model known to make in Japan. Overall the picture quality is excellent.
Onkyo TX-SR875 A/V amplifier
A well known, reviewed by many audio/video magazine, this A/V has extensive of features; 4 HDMI inputs, HQV video processing (one of reference benchmark used to qualified video quality), Burr-Brown PCM1796 for all channels, audio grade capacitors, dual push-pull triple Darlington output stage using high quality Toshiba power transistors. Low negative feedback characterized by the low damping factor (60 @ 1KHz at 8ohms) which is not typical for a solid state amplifier. Most solid-state amplifiers fall in the region 150 to 250. Most Bluray/DVD are mastered in 5.1 channel so not put two channels into waste, it is configured to bi-amp in the setup menu, driving midrange and tweeter of Wharfedale CR-40. This configuration gives better separation on the mid and high. This A/V amplifiers runs pretty hot even during idling and weighed 23kg!
Cover out: on top of heatsink mounted with 7 pair of Toshiba PNP while below, not visible another 7 pair of NPN power transistors. 2 pair/channels. Copper bus bars are using to carry high current and two large audio grade 17000uF 80V power filter caps supply all channels.
A large copper shield EL power transformer and two fans blowers at the rear side of the transformer. The fans will only kick in when the heatsink is at high temperature and during large passage.
Rear: Connection to the speakers, Sony 1.3a compliant HDMI cables, Shielded 2ED power cable terminated by Oyaide C0-79 plug and Monster subwoofer cable.
Front speaker is bi-amp connected with QED XTube 400 speakers cable while centre and rear speakers are connected using Monster THX-SP speaker cable
Wharfedale Crystal range speakers
These are very affordable speakers, the Crystal 40 floor standing speakers is a 3 ways bass reflect speakers. The sound quality from this speakers is very good, the mid is warm and high is very sweet, bass is well controlled and balanced. Overall, the sound quality from this British designed speakers is musical yet power enough to bring wide soundstage when watching HD video/audio contents.
Mounted on Target cone to isolate vibration. The Crystal 40 is top of the range in the Crystal series
Watching HDTV
The CBL/SAT Draco tuner allowed from air reception of Channel 5 in full HD, called HD5. Now most movies are transmitted in True HD with 5.1 Dolby surround sound. Even show are not True HD, they are broadcast in DVD quality with 5.1 channel DD sound. In time to come, other channel will be converted to HD. With so many English movies broadcast in True HD and 5.1 DD sound, aren't you missing out the fun? Reception is typically 75% signal strength with 95% quality. This uses an self powered outdoor antenna to receive the signal.
The Draco HDTV3800 is commercially available which receive HD5 as well as TV mobile!
Conclusion
The overall sound quality of the Home Theater system has greatly improved in both movies and music experiences. Here are some improvements:
Picture quality
Undoubted, picture quality is a great leap over here, scoring 9.5 out of 10. The Full HD Sharp LCD is very strong in its vivid colors, every details come to live. The XVcc 10bit color processing give billion of color while HQV processing render the pictures with greater details not seen in conventional A/V amps.
Simplicity in connection
Using only HDMI cable to carry both HD video/audio, it free away messy components and audio cables. With 3 components; PS3 player, DVD recorder and CBL/SAT tuner all connected through HDMI, with one spare for my Sony HDR-HC3 HDV camcorder!
Sound quality
Sound quality takes a leaps here. No longer we are restricted to lossy codecs like Dolby Digital and DTS, sound quality is uncompressed linear PCM, TrueHD Dolby or DTS-Master Audio lossless coding through Bluray. This give a great improvement in dynamic, expansive sound stage and details previously not able to attend. The PS3 up sampled audio CD to 176.4kHz via HDMI, and sound like a high-end CD player! Multi-channel SACD finally take a center stage, giving live performance so real that you are almost there! With so many improvement I give 9 out 10!
To Hi-Fi Room - Dedicate audio for music lovers
My Hi-Fi setup: Jolida JD1000A stereo tube amplifier, Marantz SA-15S1, Sony PCM-R500 digital recorder and Cambridge DAB500 tuner
Introduction
I have a dedicated music room for my music listening. After a day of work, I will relax myself with music and a can of beer. My favorite music are Classical, New age and pop. My passion for music started when I was very young and it drove me for the quest for better music reproduction. From top to bottom here are my audio gadgets...
Jolida Integrated amplifier JD1000A
I love this amp! It uses quad matched pair of EL34 tubes per channel to give 100Wrms into 4ohms driven by 12AU7 split-phase drivers and 12AX7 as a line-in amplifier. The heavy duty power supply put out more than 500 joules of power and is capable of driving big speakers while using only 5dB of negative feedback. It has all the characteristics of a tube amp; warm and sweet sounding, easy to the ears and yet able to deliver the power of a typical solid-state amplifier.
Top view of Jolida JD1000, it runs pretty warm to touch!
Tweaked: Svetlana EL34 Quad matched per channel, MultiCaps and Kimware resistors are used in critical signal and power areas
Side view of Jolida JD1000, showing the power and two output transformers
Rear side of Jolida JD1000 showing the connections
Please visit Jolida
Marantz SA-15S1 SACD/CD player
This is Marantz high-end model, it delivers music with passion; very open sound or 'airy' and the top is very extended with some 'sweetness' not only on SACDs but also on CDs. It uses top notch Crystal CS4397 multi-sigma DAC from Cirrus Logic (bottom left), HDM (a discrete class A FET output stage, top left instead of using op-amps!), a die-cast SACD/CD mechanism. Overall a sturdy construction weighed 14kg! No tweaking is necessary!
With cover out, showing the internal structures of Marantz SA-15S1.
Please visit Marantz
Sony PCM-R500 Professional Digital Recorder
Ever since my younger days I love to make recording onto a cassette tapes; complied all your favorite songs! This digital recorder allowed me to record up to 3hrs of music using readily available DDS-1 tape. Recording is done via the analog inputs with SBM (Super Bit Mapping) on, it sounded like a high quality reel to reel analog master tape. Hearing is believing! I have over 50 tapes that I recorded over the years with this baby! It records linear PCM with a higher bit rate of 2.82Mbps sample at 48KHz, which technically more superior than CD; with bit rate is 1.41Mbps sampled at 44.1kHz. Sony PCM-R500 Pro recorder is used in many studios for post CD production. Tweaked: Input stage and output stage op-amps are upgrade from NE5532 to Burr-Brown OPA2604 for improved sound quality.
Showing Sony PCM-R500 during recording session. It features 4 direct drive motors and independent input level control.
Cambridge Audio DAB500 tuner
I like the sound of DAB; free from static noise. The sound quality is better than typical budget FM tuner. Classical 92.4 with bit rate up to 192kbps shows its strength in details and dynamic which is almost CD like sound quality. Tweaked: The onboard op-amp is changed from NE5532 to Burr-Brown OPA2604, caps are upgrade to Elna Cerfine to further enhanced the sound quality. Reception is 100% full signal strength with virtually no drop out using an outdoor antenna. There are total 15 stations available, some stations like J-Pop, Jazz to mention a few are only available in DAB channel. Last but not least, I like the display: it shows the name of the song, the singer and some News updates...
Please visit Cambridge Audio
Dynaudio Contour 1.8MK2 Floor standing speakers
They are quite compact but sturdy construction. Each weighed about 18.5kg, this twin drivers and a soft dome tweeter deliver a big soundstage coupled with very good low frequency bass. The highs are sweet, coupled with Jolida tube amp it simply sounds musical! Tweaked: The internal wiring of the speakers have been upgraded to Taralab RGII and soldered with Wonder Solder - The mid is more lush, the high is sweeter while bass is tighter, overall improvement is good!
Dynaudio Contour 1.8MKII, with two 6inch woofer and a soft dome tweeter
Target speakers Cones are used to further isolate vibration.
Speaker cable are Goertz Alpha-Core M1-3 terminated by rhodium lugs, Speakers binding posts are WBT types. Sorry no bi-wiring!
Cables:
Speaker cable: Goertz by Alpha-Core, MI-3
Interconnectors: Taralabs Reference Generation 2 (For SACD/CD player) while others used Taralab RSC Prime.
Power Cables: Shielded 2ED cables terminated with Wattgate plugs
Me and my wife, Amy
2008 Copyright Guy Meredith Roberts
Email: guymrob@yahoo.com.sg